Why are we fighting each other again over something made of stone? Is it worth it?

As a Southern, I’ve always enjoyed reading stories about the old South. Some of my great-aunts and uncles remembered family members who bravely fought in the Confederacy, and I recall sitting by the fireplace, listening to exciting stories of my ancestor’s experiences in the Civil War. I continued my love for historical research throughout my life and initiated the Alabama Pioneers website in order to share my research.

My gr-gr-grandfather served in the Civil War, but like many other men in the South, he fought reluctantly because he did not believe that American citizens should fight each other.

When the discussion about taking down Confederate monuments and statues developed recently, I couldn’t bear the thought of them disappearing. I felt the statues were a part of history and should remain where they were.

Confederate Reunion – last known reunion in the State of Alabama

How the erection of Confederate monuments started

After the Civil War in 1866, scouts from the North were sent by the Federal Government to the South to retrieve Union soldiers’ bodies for burial in the United States National Cemetery. Confederate soldiers were left behind and to Southern women, this seemed like a lack of respect for their husbands and sons lying all over the battlefields and in mass graves far away from home. The neglect of Confederate dead fueled the fire of outrage among ex-Confederates, but most Alabamians were destitute and money was needed to bring their dead soldiers home.

The ladies seized on the plan of the erection of monuments to fallen leaders of the Confederacy as an incentive to raise money.

Did you know that Robert E. Lee did not want monuments erected?

As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated; my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt in the present condition of the Country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishment; & of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour. All I think that can now be done, is to aid our noble & generous women in their efforts to protect the graves & mark the last resting places of those who have fallen, & wait for better times.

However, funds were raised and monuments and statues were constructed, and many bodies of Confederate veterans were brought home to be buried. I’m sure at the time these ladies never realized the controversy their effort to merely bury their dead would create.

Times have changed

It has been 151 years since the Southern ladies and first met to erect these monuments and statues to the Southern fallen soldiers. Today, these monuments and statues have taken on new meaning and have become a source of pain, propaganda, and disagreement for many Americans.

On August 12, 2017, a young girl, and two policemen died and 19 people were injured in Charlottesville, Virginia in a protest to removed the monument of Robert E. Lee.

As I watched in horror as American citizens fought each other in Charlottesville, I asked myself, ” Are these statues and monuments worth innocent people dying over?”

Additionally, the extremist’s groups such as neo-Nazi etc., have taken advantage of our disagreement over the memorials and accommodated this as a cause in their own propaganda. We must not let our memorials be desecrated by them and become part of a race war in this country.

This is not honoring our Confederate ancestors. Our ancestors would be sickened to see what is happening today over these simple hunks of rock and saddened to know that they resulted in additional bloodshed in our great country today. After four long years of war which devasted the South, our veterans longed to unite the country.

(Watch the film below to see their feelings toward each other when they had a reunion at the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg in 1913.)

Where do the statues belong?

How many times have you walked past and not even noticed the statues at public buildings? If the statues and monuments were in museums, and cemeteries, we would probably notice them more, and we could honor, study, learn as well as share the history of the Civil War with the younger generations from our own personal perspectives, both good and bad.

Perhaps it is time to remember our dead in their actual last resting places and museums and through videos, books or stories. The statues could be better protected in cemeteries and museums instead of being destroyed and defaced. Ask yourself, would our Confederate soldiers want us to fight for such a simple reason as to where the statues should be placed?

Our Civil War veterans showed us how to stop hating each other. We must not let anything divide our country again. The lives of all of our veterans who sacrificed their lives for us deserve much more.

Ribbon of Love: A Novel of Colonial America (Tapestry of Love) (Volume 1) Ribbon of Love was a wonderful love story of Henry and Mary living and struggling to succeed as one of the first families in the colony of Virginia in the 1600s. In addition to the love story, the descriptions of the clothing, home furnishings, personalities, family life, church and community are most intriguing. The exhilarating action and subplots keep the reader in constant anticipation. It is almost impossible to put the book down until completion. – Dr. Don P. Brandon, Retired Professor, Anderson University

AWS.InvalidParameterValue: 1508807353 is not a valid value for ItemId. Please change this value and retry your request.

96 comments

The problem with compromising with leftists savages as the author advocates here, is that when you do you simply whet their barbaric appetites for MORE compromise. They ARE ALREADY attacking museums and cemeteries and you think moving those monuments to museums and cemeteries will stop them??

You are sadly naive.

They will NEVER stop until they bury every vestige of not only Southern history but western civilization including Christianity and then you, your children and grandchildren along with it.

I agree with you Roger. I don’t negotiate with terrorists . These are communists. We cannot capitulate to appease them . Their argument is lame . It’s political only . No and No. Our history must be preserved .

Who is attacking museums? When you describe a whole lot of different folks as savages, it really reinforces that you have no respect for many of your fellow citizens. Many people who don’t like the statues are southern. Can anyone tell me how taking down a statue of Robert E Lee would alter history?

Yes, savages they are. Antifa and BAMN are savage. You are missing the big picture and are forgetting your history, and you won’t have to go back past the 20th century with your history review to see what comes from book burning, dehumanization, and government sanctioned prejudice against any segment of society.

My Great-great Grandfather volunteered in the Southern Army at the age of 16. Our family had no slaves noted on any census report. Family lore is that he believed in the rights of the states to govern themselves as they saw fit. I would rather fight than let leftist socialist pigs try to revise the history of our country to suit their political narrative. What is being allowed to occur by a bunch of mollycoddles is a travesty and our forefathers call from the grave for justice.

Sadly, I agree with you. Remember Colin Kapernick and his refusal to stand for the National Anthem because it or the flag (can’t remember which) oppressed him? Yes, he is unemployable today, but if this movement succeeds I suspect we’ll see the founding fathers, the flag and the anthem become the next target. Identity politics create cults of victimhood and a dialogue that drives a need for continuous apologies. It will never be enough.

You are absolutely correct. These protests have nothing to do with statues! The War has been over for 150 plus years. If it was so important to take down these statues, why not do it when they would have had the help of Obama. No, this is much more serious and frightening than statues. If you have seen videos of these protesters, you will hear that they are yelling “Down with the USA.” These people, with the backing of people like George Soros, WANT to bring down this country. Now it is not just Confederate statues they want to tear down, but also those of Washington, Jefferson, Columbus, and even those on Stone Mt., Ga. We cannot allow our history to be obliterated.

Actually this all started over eight years ago with the election of a President who bowed down to foreign leaders, who would not salute the flag, who said this is not a Christian nation, who stated in his book that he “would always stand with the Muslims,” and who always took the side of the killers in a protest.

It is extremely frustrating to see that there are people who want to compromise with these protesters. Evidently these people don’t know what is going on in our country. They are more than a little naive. Maybe it makes them feel good to say, “Oh, these poor people.” However, WE are going to be the poor people when our country falls.

I agree! What a well said article. I just said to my husband tonight that the people that these monuments meant something to are gone, and we, generations later, are just walking by them as if they are invisible. Now, a hornets nest has been kicked open and we’re fighting over their existence. I hope sensible people can voice their opinions on how to preserve and place these monuments where they are best honored.

You should hope that someday no one feels the same about you such that they would seek to remove you from society as your implication that those who disagree with you are not sensible is an offensive aggression and should not be allowed in my safe space.

My ancestors were plantation owners and slave owners. They fought in Civil War and died. I agree with General Lee that the South does not need to be fighting over this again. We are a united nation and we need to stay that way. I’m perfectly comfortable with the statues being put in the cemetery or museums. There are too many folks whose heart are sore and disheartened by their presents. I suspect they will be much more honored at Decoration Day by being there.

Aaron, you are either complicit with these “disruptors” as they call themselves, or “protesters” as you like to color them or woefully uninformed. It is easy for anyone with clear sight and an open mind to see by their aktion (no, that is not a misprint) who they are.

Roger Brothers you mean the groups that are out in the street protesting and fighting neo Nazi’s? If you think everyone who wants the statues to come down is some kind of extremist Marxist radicals, you are naive and watch too much tv

Equivacating the South and monuments put up by little old ladies collecting pennies from schoochildren to remember their soldiers with the National Socialists shows just how far removed from reality you people really are. I know most of you slept through those two days of civil war “history” your coach taught in high school but now you’re experts on it.

If you don’t understand why the statues are offensive to your black neighbors and fellow citizens, ask em. If you don’t understand that the statues were put up to try to keep black folks “in their place” and to present a ridiculously naive version of the confederacy and the ante-bellum south, do your research

If you don’t really care how black folks feel about the statues, say it. Because that is really the issue. I don’t know anyone who wants to change history. But there are a lot of folks who don’t want us to celebrate leaders of a movement that was willing to die and kill for their rights to own people. The civil war was much more complex than this, but fundamentally the states suceeded to preserve the peculiar institution

It doesn’t take statues to keep blacks in “their place” as you put it. Look at the morals, values, culture and content of character most display in the life they lead. Of course they blame the above mentioned traits on the oppressive white man but they need look no further than the closest mirror.

Your revisionist opinion that the statues were “put up to… keep black people in their place” shows that if you read the article at all, you did not comprehend as it clearly mentioned why these statues were erected and it was not for the reason you opined.

Got actual evidence of that or is that something you heard? I’ve seen those same statues from the same time in towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania. I suspect as the veterans were dying off in the 20s, and public coffers throughout the nation were flush with cash so there was an impetuous to honor the war veterans before they were all gone. There were also plenty of statue salesmen with mid-19th kept clad soldiers in their inventory traveling from town to town selling their wares.

Oh yeah, and in the 1920s there was little need to keep black people in their place down South. They knew their place and few strayed from it.

It is only this week that I have seen anyone claim that the Rebel statues – but obviously not the contemporaneous and almost identical Yankee statues – were erected for intimidation purposes. Got any evidence other than convenient conjecture for that? A letter? City council meeting minutes? Sure this isn’t some “journalistic” wishful thinking?

Excuse me for viewing anything I read, hear or see in media these days with a jaundiced eye. It’s been many decades since our news organizations have justified my trust.

Alabama Pioneers Are you saying there that the Ladies Memorial Association says in there somewhere, “Ladies, we have to erect these moments to our fallen heroes so that the coloreds will know their place”? How far do I have to read to find it. Or was it said in code?

I did research a list of Confederate memorials in Alabama and say that they were erected from the late 1890s to the 1920s. With many in the first decade of the 20th Century. To me that speaks of local financing as the impetuous.

No, nothing like that was ever said as far as my research goes. It appears the statues were erected as incentives to raise money to retrieve the bodies of Southern soldiers, husbands, sons etc. on battlefields so they could be brought home to be buried. Southerners were very poor after the war.

Mr. Montgomery, I do not have evidence that they were constructed for intimidation purposes. I will admit that I have somewhat bought in to that narrative because it falls in line with my perceptions of that time, and i need to do more research in that regard. But we aren’t just talking about statues of fallen soldiers, many of the statues are of the leaders of the confederacy, who few can argue were victims of circumstance. If there was no need to keep black folks in check, why so many lynchings? Why the violent enforcement of Jim Crow laws? Why the massive increase in the membership of groups like the Klan? It was in reaction to an increasing desire for equality from black folks all over the nation, not just in the south. The south certainly had no monopoly on cruelty. Even in that article you posted from the WP, it is stated several times that at least part of the reason many statues were constructed was to celebrate white supremacy, albeit without citations. In my opinion, we have very little to lose from taking the statues (particularly those of confederate leaders) down. It isn’t changing history, and it won’t change what people learn in school about the civil war. It wont fix race relations or the complex racial issues we have down here. But if a group of people raise a concern, and it is wholly ignored and minimized, it is unrealistic to assume that group of people will feel like they are being taken seriously. Or feel like their concerns matter to the larger community.

Your straw men which you interjected since your original prejudicial opinion about the intentions of others serve only to further illustrate the depravity of your argument. Then quoting an anonymous source from a biased news source did little to help. You also say that “we have little to lose by taking these statues down” yet we’ve already lost a life. When you “ignore or minimize”, to use your own words, a persons life, you further erode your credibility as you argue your assumed and projected biased assumptions onto others. While your empathy for certain oppressed parties is admirable, your arguments as you’ve presented them here, are weak. You can continue here if you wish, but unless you come up with something better, you are only defeating yourself.

Aaron Hanlin have not made it through all of that not because it’s not well written but because it’s late and I can’t give it the attention it needs. Tomorrow I will.

I do offer this thought, however; I knew people growing up who knew people who fought in The War. Some of the people I knew growing up remembered the privations that still lingered decades after the War. In the 1960s theses people were still angry and bitter about the perceived injustice perpetrated on them. But this anger was towards Yankees, not towards Southern Black people. In their minds Southern blacks were just as victimized by the Yankees as they had been. (And, yes, it was a paternalistic mindset, but that’s how it was).

In our minds growing up we saw Lee, Jackson, Hood, Johnson, Longstreet and Forrest (probably the finest cavalry tactician to ever mount a saddle) as American military heroes on par with Washington, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Black Jack Pershing and George S Patton. The fact that they fought for the Confederacy did not make them antithetical to being Americans. I know it is tempting to shoehorn past thoughts and actions into our modern thinking and experience, but it is generally a bad fit.

Alabama Pioneers thank you for clarifying. I was not asking (just) to troll but because this very subject came up in a conversation earlier this evening. As I was just telling my friend Aaron, it is tempting to shoehorn our present day values and prejudices into an explanation of the motivations and actions of generations far removed but it is almost never a good fit.

This article is flawed. In the article it tries to make the case that General Lee was not for erecting monuments for the Southern cause. What Lee said (reread the article)was that due to the economic condition of the South at the time, money was better spent rebuilding. Due to the extreme poverty of the South caused by the War, you can see today that most monuments weren’t erected until 40-50 years after the war was over. The Confederate monument in my home town was not paid for by public funds by paid for by private citizens (my ancestors helped to raise the money for it). Even the upper class blacks (Booker T Washington among them) helped. To remove monuments to the deeds and bravery of my people and my ancestors, paid for with private funds, which have stood for over 100 years without any controversy until now by a few people is lunacy. At a minimum, put it up to a public vote before removing them!

No one today is advocating slavery for blacks or anyone else. To try to make the case that these monuments are advocating slavery is trying to look for something to be upset about. We are a diverse society and all it’s members need to embrace the diversity we have amongst the black, white, hispanic heritages we have. I may not be happy about MLK (an adulterer and hypocrite) being the only American to have a holiday set aside just to honor one person, but I’ll accept it in the spirit of racial conciliation. Those against Confederate monuments should be equally magnanimous. To remove monuments because a vocal and violent minority wants them removed is to reward anarchy.

Thank you, Judie. Exactly my point. I apologize for not making it clearer. Southerners generally followed Lee’s request and built the majority of monuments when the South was sufficiently recovered economically to do so. Lee’s opinion wasn’t that the monuments shouldn’t be built, but that they should be built after the South’s economy recovered. While quoting General Lee, perhaps it is also fitting to include that he said that had he known what the South would endure after the war (during so called reconstruction), he never would have surrendered at Appomattox; instead he’d have fought to the last man.

Tom Capps I found a web site with the date of Confederate memorials in each state giving the dates they were erected. I have not found one for similar memorials in northern states but the Washington Post says the same company in Massachusetts was selling similar statues to Southern and northern towns. People can get their knickers in a twist if they want but all I’ve got to say is, honi soit qui mal y pense.

Cultural Marxism : The gradual process of destroying all traditions, languages, religions, individuality, government, family, law and order in order to re-assemble society in the future as a communist utopia. This utopia will have no notion of gender, traditions, morality, god or even family or the state.

Both my great grandfathers fought in the civil war; neither owned slaves but one thing they taught their children and their grandchildren and they in turn passed it on to my generation was the War Between The States (they called it that because both said there was nothing civil about it) was started not because of slavery but states rights as far as their imports and exports of goods. The democrats in congress decided to make it about slavery. At the time there were more slaves in the northern states than in the southern states. I see the statues and I talk to my children about them and it brings history alive to them; we see monuments with names of soldiers who fought for the confederacy, we have also seen monuments to those who fought on the United States side and read the names of those soldiers. We talk about what happened after the war; unfair taxes, carpetbaggers, sent from the north to punish an already suffering south. If there was hatred created out of that war, it was the actions after the war more than the actions during the war. I firmly believe that had Abraham Lincoln not been assassinated, he would have never allowed the atrocities heaped on those in the south; there would have been no need for a KKK which was formed not to lynch blacks, but to protect families because when the families were attacked, women raped, children beaten, men drug through the streets or robbed at gunpoint after the war, the law enforcement in place (usually union soldiers) would do nothing. The KKK of the 50s and 60s was nothing like the KKK formed immediately after the war. The modern day KKK is nothing but a horrible hate group which has become worse with the neo-nazis joining in. Black Lives Matter is a hate group and Antifa is a fascist group that hates us all. The statues and monuments tell a story if folks just took the time to study them and read the words on them and do a little research. I’m glad I am an American citizen and I’m also very honored to be a Southerner with ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary war, the War Between the States and World War II and Vietnam War.

The KKK was formed as a reaction to union and carpet bagger activities during reconstruction, particularly the attempt to give black folks political power. Electing black representatives during that time being an example. If you don’t think the KKK were terrorizing black folks during reconstruction, you should read more about that time. The states succeeded after Lincoln was elected before anything had been done about slavery or economic issues because they believed slavery was on the chopping block. What exactly had been implemented economically that caused the states to succeed? I too have relatives that fought in the civil war, on both sides, and I recognize that many of the regular soldiers had no skin in the game when it came to slavery. That doesn’t change the motivations of the leaders

I have studied a lot about my family in the south during this time. Everyone if the soldiers enlisted after the conscription law of 1862. Had they not signed up, the CSA COULD KILL THEM. People don’t understand that ten farmers and little people were forced to fight or die in your own yard. Rich people and those with slaves were allowed to pass or find a mercenary. It’s disturbing that these monuments in parks and other types of remembrances could be looked at as a positive reminder that our country went to war for them, fought and died died for them.

When you stir an old pile of shit, it brings the stink back. No one had issue with these for 5 generations until now. The real question is why now? 100 years later. 50 years since the civil rights movement. This is Marxism. The burning and looting of cities and killing of police officers by the same hate groups that want them gone is far more terrifying than 100 year old statues.

What the violent extremists on BOTH sides can’t seem to comprehend is that those monuments were put up to honor those that risked and in many cases gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country and their people. These were men of ALL races and creeds too. Fact is most blacks both slave and free supported the South in her effort to become an independant nation. If they hadn’t the Confederacy could not have lasted 6 months.

If those men of whatever race had thought for a second that they were going to war so that a few rich men could keep their slaves the vast majority would have stayed at home and there would have been no war. By the same token had yankees believed for a second that they were going to risk their lives to free a people they had never laid eyes on they would have stayed home too!

If you read newspaper articles and look at the photos of the dedication ceremonies for these monuments when they were erected, you will recognise pretty quickly that it was the BLACK veterans that were given the place of honor.

Neither patriotism nor love of home nor devotion to duty have a race and neither does granite.

Next time some savage barbarian advocates destroying or hiding these monuments, put up to the honored dead at great sacrifice by the still impoverished widows and orphans of patriots let us remember this.

THE CRAZIES COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THE STATUES IT ONLY ABOUT DISRUPTION AND THE MUSLIM C I A R IS THE TROUBLE MAKERS,, THINK ABOUT ARAB SPRING IN EGYPT THESE IDIOTS DESTROYED ALL THE HISTORY OF EGYPT EXPECTING TO TAKE OVER THE COUNTRY BUT THE MILITARY SHUT THEM DOWN………OUR SECRET WEAPON IS PRAYER SO GET BUSY PRAYING FOR THEIR REMOVAL FROM AMERICA…..NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD ……HE WILL SHOW UP AND SHOW OUT……

The people did nothing while Obama was president! Many protestors are paid. Anti Americans want more than statues. It is about much more. Americans should unite together! Our enemies are getting what they want!

You could move all the statues and memorials to museums and cemeteries and the hate groups still wouldn’t be satisfied.If we let this small minority of racists and bigots tell us what we can and can’t do where will it end?Are we going to burn every book that references the Civil War?

This was written by Rose Samply. I concur: “You want to talk about statues? Let’s talk about statues.

I am a proud Southern woman. I drink sweet tea like nobody’s business, know the difference between a Western and English saddle, and can make a pecan pie from scratch. Believe me when I say I love my heritage and my culture.

I grew up one block down from the Chickamauga battlefield in Georgia. I had picnics in that park, went hiking on those trails with my girl scout troop. Confederate statues are all too familiar to me.

In fourth grade I took a field trip to Stone Mountain to see the faces of Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson up close and personal. This is a very fond memory for me of my childhood. I remember salt water taffy and blown glass figurines in the park. I remember riding the Summit Skyride and just looking out for miles and miles.

But you know what I don’t remember? Anyone telling me, “These men carved into this mountain are the men that lost the Civil War. These are the men who fought to be a separate America and lost. These are the men that fought to keep slaves.” No one took the time to educate me on the real history of these men. Instead, I was filled with fun, happy thoughts. How could these guys be bad people? I mean, they’re riding horses, come on! Every ten year old thinks someone riding a horse is cool. Now, there’s a chance I just wasn’t listening, or I didn’t read enough wall plaques because I was an easily distracted kid who didn’t care too much for history. This is entirely possible. But I guaran-damn-tee no one ever said the word slavery to me while I was there. Not my parents, not my teachers, not the park employees.

The same goes for the Chickamauga Battlefield, less than half a mile from my front door. No one ever stopped to say, “this is important history because they fought to keep slaves and lost.” All that time I spent staring at sculptures of these men, I never knew they were fighting on the wrong side of history. Now you bet I heard phrases like “state rights” and “war of northern aggression”. But it was always in passing and vague. What state rights? Aggression about what? No one ever told me, and I didn’t know I was supposed to ask because it was all so normal to me.

That’s the thing about these memorials. Do they offend me? No, not particularly. Because they’ve been NORMALIZED my whole life. This is where it is our job to listen to marginalized people that are offended and hurt by these. If they say these are bad and we should take them down, they’re probably right! Just because we’ve been taught our whole lives that they’re okay, does not make them okay. The fact that they don’t make me uncomfortable IS THE WHOLE PROBLEM. These statues aren’t there to teach us history. They’re there to rewrite history and feed us false perceptions of the Civil War. They make us comfortable with a very bad cause.

Do you think these white supremacists were radicalized overnight? They are a direct product of DECADES of misinformation and misdirection. Of normalization and an overwhelming acceptance of “how it’s always been”. The South can no longer fall behind the ideology of how it’s always been. Times are changing, and we should too.

I love being a Southerner. I love my heritage. But I can be proud of where I come from without embracing a history that never really was. I can acknowledge my ancestors’ mistakes and appreciate the past without glorifying them on pedestals.

We don’t need a single Confederate statue. Not a single one. Not until they’re all accompanied with real teachings and historical lessons, which can happen in a museum. Not until we have our picnics beside Robert E Lee and describe him to our children as he REALLY was.

Please share this so all centrists and sympathizers can know that yes, you can be a proud Southerner and NOT defend these terrible things. It’s not our fault that we’ve been misled our whole lives. But we’re adults now, and we no longer have an excuse for not educating ourselves.

I am a proud citizen of the United States of America, not the Confederate States of America.”

I am one of a very few left whose grandfather fought for the South. Starke H. Oliver was wounded at Atlanta. I’m sorry if honoring my ancestors might offend someone, but on the other hand, apparently there are many who find no problem with offending me. God bless the USA – we need His blessing!

Cultural Marxism : The gradual process of destroying all traditions, languages, religions, individuality, government, family, law and order in order to re-assemble society in the future as a communist utopia. This utopia will have no notion of gender, traditions, morality, god or even family or the state.

A good read, but I have no belief that the removal of eve,y statue raised to the Confederate dead would result in one minutes pause in the destruction of this country’s history and culture. This is not a struggle about the interpretation of the Civil War and it’s impact on modern Civil rights, it is a struggle to remake America in a socailist template.

I urge all supporters of historical monuments in Alabama to contact the Governor and others politicians to pass a stronger bill that increases fines and penalties for destruction or removal of all monuments 40 years or older. http://216.226.177.218/forms/contact.aspx

No Confederate monument belongs on public spaces or government property. Those who cherish the soldiers and others who fought for the Confederacy have the right to honor those who fought for the continued slavery of Africanamericans on their private property. As it is, we are still fighting the mentality of the Confederacy. The myth of the genteel south is belied by its history of savagery and violence. Keep your honoring among yourselves. The poison it represents dishonors even the myth of “…with freedom and justice for all”.

Our great 1st Great Grandfather, to come to America on Nanny’s side, fought in American Revolution and owned slaves. His children or grandchildren fought fought in Civil War and Mexican American war to free our great State of Texas. Youre most likely aware of these facts, if not suggest you ask your Mom, my Aunt Mary Lou.

YES, it is absolutely “worth it”. First books, then flags, then MEMORIALS…. what will come next? Mandatory apologies and reparations for being born white? I note the irony in the first line. “As a southern, I’ve always enjoyed reading stories about the old South…” As an American who was born, raised nurtured in the south, I stopped reading a long time ago, in 1966, and went into the military service and did my share to ensure that our freedom to live as we wished was preserved. Many who went with me did not return to their homes to take up their life where they paused it. Many were memorialized in metal or stone. Many were covered by the flag that liberal twits now denigrate and destroy. All of us have been respected on some monument or another. You see you aren’t fighting each other over something made of stone, at all. We are fighting because those who despise the history that kept them free wil now destroy anything and everything without control if they are allowed their petulance. We are fighting for our heritage against a people who demand that their heritage be placed on a pedestal.

Your position is shamed by your own reference to Robert Lee and his position of not “wanting monuments”. He would then be respected for his adherance to their ideology, wouldn’t he? But his monument was torn down by Duke University yesterday. As for the statement that we are “fighting over stones”, last week in Memphis the rioters “symbolically broke the ground” on the grave of Nathan Bedford Forrest in their demand that his body and that of his wife be dug up and moved. In further evidence of their hysteria, Brigadier Nathan Bedford Forrest III, USAAC, who was a literal hero who died to save the lives of a bomber crew in WWII has a memorial plaque next to his great-grandfather’s grave and the rioters demand that HIS plaque be uprooted and removed. And, again with General Lee, his grave has been defaced and harassed at W&L University. If we do not stand and stop the hysterical and ludicrous hate of all things “southern” and white we will be unable to do so in the near future. I have always demanded true equality for all people. I worked all my adult life in public service in support of equality for everyone and I will not see my heritage destroyed by a vitriolic mob.

The author is a distant cousin of mine who has spent many years researching life in early Alabama to the present time. What caught my attention was the comment about her great grandfather who did not want to fight in the Civil War because he did not think that Americans should be fighting against each other. But like my great grandfather and his brothers, they had no choice. They were just poor farmers. My family was forced to leave Arkansas after the war because everything they had owned had been destroyed. They were not slave owners, but were forced to fight for a cause that they really did not support. You can compare this to the Vietnam War. Many young men were drafted and forced to fight a war that they did not support. Many died, suffered injuries both physical and mental, and when they came home they were disrespected by a majority of the American people. I see the destruction of historical monuments as disrespecting the history of our country and of the men who served whether they chose to fight or were conscripted.

Two of my gr-gr-grandfathers fought in the Civil War. One grandfather, Braxton Dunlavy of Winston County, was vehemently against seceding from the Union and in fact sued the United States (and won) for reparations to his farm by Union soldiers since he always considered himself a citizen of the United States and not a Confederate. I very much agree with Ms. Causey’s opinions in this article. The events of Charlottesville made me reflect on my heritage and to acknowledge that my family who fought for the Confederacy were on the wrong side of history. I do not want to forget or demonize them. The Civil War should be studied and there should be museums to share and learn from the history. However, we should not put Confederate leaders on pedestals in public places. They lost the war 78 years before I was born, and the memorials bring out the worst of some of us in the 21st century.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment*

Name *

Email *

Website

We are excited here at AP. Our latest volume in our popular Alabama Footprints series has been released.

The eighth edition, BANISHED, documents The Indian Removal Act called for the “voluntary or forcible removal of all Indians” residing in the eastern United States to the west of the Mississippi River. Between 1831 and 1837, approximately 46,000 Native Americans were forced to leave their homes in southeastern states. Available in paperback and ebook at this link

Our Grist Mill Podcast

Listen to the latest episodes of our new Alabama Grist Mill Podcast

Newsletter Signup

Sign up to receive our daily email of our new stories.

Name:

Email:

Great news, we've signed you up.Sorry, we weren't able to sign you up. Please check your details, and try again.